Channel 4 FactCheck goes behind the spin to dig out the truth and separate political fact from fiction.
May 24, 2012 6:31 pm 3 Comments
The claim:
“The truth is…the amount of export support is massively up on the last election, in terms of billions of extra money that’s being spent.”
- David Cameron, Prime Minister’s Questions, 23 May 2012
Continue reading and comment
May 21, 2012 7:46 pm 23 Comments
Venture capitalist Adrian Beecroft advises the government to cut red tape and make it easier to fire workers to save the economy. FactCheck doesn't think it'll do much good.
May 15, 2012 6:07 pm 11 Comments
"All these things would take a toll on your wallet, not to mention your marriage, sanity etc."
May 14, 2012 6:49 pm 4 Comments
"He's also right that overall clinical staff levels have risen...but only if you choose your time frame carefully."
May 10, 2012 6:00 pm 5 Comments
Jim Murphy has challenged the government to "come clean" about how much its aircraft carrier u-turn has cost the taxpayer - which he'd heard could be as much as £250m. "This is an embarrassing shambles," he said, after Defence Secretary Philip Hammond went from outlining a bill of something between £40m-£50m only to admit later that it could be as much as £100m. Mr Hammond insisted however that the bill would be "much less than £250m". Who's right? FactCheck investigates.
May 9, 2012 6:25 pm 5 Comments
It was a short Queen’s Speech, and for some not a very sweet one - with the government taking a beating for making no mention of some key policies. Is it the Lib Dems' fault as Mr Cameron claims? FactCheck looks at what was missing in the Speech and why.
May 8, 2012 6:03 pm 9 Comments
couple of days after the budget, with rows raging about the "granny tax" and George Osborne's decision to help the super-rich by cutting the 50p rate, the PM had what seemed like a smart idea. Number 10 decided to bring forward plans to increase the price of cheap alcohol, to tackle binge drinking and what David Cameron called "the mayhem on our streets". According to Mr Cameron cheap booze is causing a "scourge of violence" - a million violent crimes and more than a million hospital admissions each year. Setting a minimum unit price (MUP) would, he promised, provide "a big part of the answer". But I've found out that just four days before he made his announcement, he'd been warned by one of his own ministers that the policy could well be illegal. Was the PM right to go ahead or should he have listened to his colleague?
May 4, 2012 5:23 pm 8 Comments
"His best predictions at time of writing are that Labour would win 34.04 per cent of the vote in the next general election, but the Conservatives would still be ahead on 36.59 per cent."
May 3, 2012 8:47 pm 6 Comments
Playing down the meltdown at Heathrow's border control earlier this week, Damian Green told MPs: "I stress to the House that our information shows that queuing times bore no resemblance to some of the wilder suggestions." But with these "wilder suggestions" coming from the airlines and passengers themselves, it's little wonder that British Airways' chief executive Willie Walsh accused the minister was "misleading" the public over the extent of waiting times at passport control. Mr Walsh told Channel 4 News: "I think he was certainly misleading when he told people that the maximum queue was 90 minutes when we know it went well beyond that – and not just on one occasion." Who's right? FactCheck jets in.
8:37 pm 1 Comment
Iain Duncan Smith may have said he wants to make work pay, but the department for work and pensions has been written to by its own cleaners who say they aren't paid enough to live on. FactCheck looks at their demands for a "living wage".
Get the latest updates to this blog the moment they happen
Get our FREE daily newsletter written by Channel4 correspondents in your inbox by 6pm every day.
